Animal Health Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 4:26 pm on 26 March 2002.

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Photo of Lord Chorley Lord Chorley Crossbench 4:26, 26 March 2002

My Lords, unfortunately, I was not able to take part in the Second Reading debate. If I have an interest to declare, it is that I live in Cumbria which was at the heart of the dreadful outbreak. I do not farm but I am acutely aware of the enormous damage that the outbreak did to the tourism and recreational industries on which much of the economy of the Lake District, where I live, depended. As I believe the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, said in her Second Reading speech, I am well aware that if the foot and mouth disease were to break out again there the wide support which the tourist industry and recreational bodies gave to Her Majesty's Government last year would not be repeated. If this Bill were to become an Act of Parliament, it would not help.

I rather sympathised with the Prime Minister when he decided against having a public inquiry because I believed that that would take years and we wanted good, quick post hoc investigations. The three inquiries were set up. We have had the Curry report on farming, a first-class report. I should have thought that we were not that far away from receiving the other two important reports. But apparently the Government cannot wait. They want draconian measures. They want measures which make criminals of ordinary people. Yet it is 10 weeks since the Second Reading debate.

The Second Reading debate demonstrated that the Bill was exceptionally controversial. The fact that we have spent an hour and 19 minutes on the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Moran, shows equally how controversial it still is. Yet apparently we cannot await the two reports. As the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, asked, what was the point of commissioning those reports? What an insult it is to the distinguished people who make up those committees if we cannot wait before we leap into legislation. We all know that legislation in haste—and if any measure was legislation in haste it must be this one—usually ends in tears. How can it be right to proceed with such highly controversial measures when we do not know what the two important reports will say?